short date in bash PS1 prompt

Question

You can use \d in the your PS1 confuration to display a long date ie. Tues 18 May, but how can I get it to display it in a format like 18.05.2012 for example?

score 74 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 27 '21 at 16:36

74

Try including \D{%d.%m.%Y}. You can use any time format supported by strftime(3).

edited Oct 27 '21 at 16:36

MiniGod

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answered Feb 08 '12 at 20:30

FatalError

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This should be accepted as it uses shell substitution instead of an external command in a subshell. – mcmlxxxvi Nov 25 '15 at 17:35

score 22 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 25 '23 at 22:23

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Rather than telling the shell to execute the date command each time, you can use the built-in format:

\D{%F %T}

to give you date and time in this in format: YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss

edited Jun 25 '23 at 22:23

Rob Bednark

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answered Oct 05 '14 at 19:05

user4111240

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score 19 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 25 '23 at 22:23

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PS1="\$(date +%d.%m.%Y) > "
export PS1

edited Jun 25 '23 at 22:23

Rob Bednark

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answered Feb 08 '12 at 20:30

Mithrandir

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Better to use the shell substitution as per FatalError answer below. – jzacharuk Sep 26 '17 at 15:57

score 19 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 08 '22 at 03:40

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Use \D{format} where format is a strftime format code. For example:

$ export PS1='\D{%d.%m.%Y}$ '
08.02.2012$

edited Jun 08 '22 at 03:40

phuclv

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answered Feb 08 '12 at 20:31

martineg

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Great answer for my problem. However how do you make this permament? – ECII Jun 27 '21 at 07:01
Depending on your platform, you could put these kind of customizations in ~/.bash_profile which is read when a new interactive shell is started. – martineg Jun 30 '21 at 13:13

score 5 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 14 '19 at 08:44

5

you can try this that display time:

$ PS1="\n\t \u@\h:\w# "

08:18:57 user@localhost:/home/user#

edited Jul 14 '19 at 08:44

Romil Patel

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answered Jul 14 '19 at 08:26

marwansherin

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 15 '20 at 19:06

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I'm not sure how to apply this to PS1 specifically (maybe someone can edit this question to replace this part with the best working bit from other questions).

BUT you can get short date formatted according to your current locale with:

date +%x

answered Sep 15 '20 at 19:06

Carolus

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short date in bash PS1 prompt

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